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Mass Effect 3, BioWare, And The Perils Of Writing About Video Games

So I wrote a post recently saying that for my part, I’m going to wait and see if BioWare listens to its upset fans and takes their complaints into account for their next game.

I described the developer as having had three strikes at bat, so far as much of the gaming community was concerned: Dragon Age 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Mass Effect 3. Some people tacked on games like Mass Effect 2 to the list, while others opined that BioWare hasn’t made a good game since the first Knights of the Old Republic. Obviously not everyone agrees on what constitutes a strike at bat when it comes to the games.

Anyways, my suggestions were straightforward: don’t pre-order any BioWare games or buy them at launch if you feel burned by recent releases.

Pre-ordering and launch-day purchases are always a bit of a risk, but especially if a developer has been changing their games in a direction you dislike.

I also said that it’s quite possible that BioWare will listen to its fans. What’s the point of consumer activism if we don’t hold out that sort of hope? What’s the point in starting a Hold the Line movement or complaining at all if we don’t believe that a company can improve?

Many companies inside and out of the tech sphere go through rough patches; sometimes they recover, sometimes they don’t. I pointed out that BioWare has made many excellent games, and that the unprecedented backlash against the Mass Effect 3 ending, its day-one DLC, and so forth, might serve as a wake-up call for both BioWare and EA. Maybe not, but it’s always possible. If it weren’t possible, the backlash itself would be meaningless.

So, hold the wallet, as the saying goes, but also hold out hope.

A Healthy Debate

Many commenters cordially disagreed. We had a good discussion about it. 158 comments and counting right now on the original post.

Many believe that the handling of the Mass Effect 3 controversy was botched, that BioWare responded with indignation, that the “artistic integrity” argument was a lousy one. I’ve written about all these things, and I agree. It was a PR nightmare in many ways, up until the free Extended Cut which was, while imperfect, nevertheless a positive sign and a step in the right direction.

“But that was just their being hand forced,” some argued. So what?

Again, this is the point of consumer activism: to force hands. At that point BioWare couldn’t really have come out unscathed. No matter what move they made, it was going to be met with disdain by many. Had they not released the Extended Cut, it’s likely they would have been met with even more scorn and derision. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Many commenters argue that EA is the real problem, and maybe they’re right. It’s quite possible that BioWare is no longer the company they once were. I don’t know one way or another, to be quite honest. Nor do I know what their next title will bring. For many, the sting they feel after the last Mass Effect game is enough to dissuade them from buying another BioWare title even if it’s a great game. That’s absolutely your prerogative as a consumer.

I’ve been critical of the way the game business has become so publisher-driven, as well, and have placed a kernel of hope in crowd-funding and the indie scene (though not too much hope, given some problems with Kickstarter and my enjoyment of many AAA games.)

I believe that the relationship between creators and consumers is a dynamic one. When one side messes up, the other should point that out. If the error is fixed in the future, that should be acknowledged.

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Comments

I’m still reading this blog. I appreciate balanced, thoughtful critique and am really turned off by those who rant and range over a piece of entertainment. It hardly seems worth the effort to get so bent out of shape over something that in the grand scheme of things is fairly trivial. Yes, BioWare’s Dragon Age 2 disappointed me. I purchased Mass Effect 3 but have yet to play it because I’m still playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and will likely wait for all the single player DLC for ME3 to be released before. I have decided that for future BioWare single player RPG’s I will wait for a “content complete” version to be released before purchasing. I don’t much care for a significant portion of the DLC model that BioWare currently uses. But if BioWare and EA choose not to release complete versions of their games, a la Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 2 as opposed to Dragon Age: Orgins Ultimate Edition, I may not be buying any more BioWare games.

It’s pricing like that which is killing the $50-60 game I think. I haven’t bought a full price game in ages and the longer I go without it the harder it is to convince myself it’s worth dropping $50-60 bucks. Though, I did buy Skyward Sword full price, so there’s that.

Wow, let’s see, buy the full game for $7.50, or buy the Witch Hunt DLC alone for $6.99? Yep waiting is best, after all.

While we are on this subject, why doesn’t DLC pricing permanently drop with older games? There is a lot of DLC I would consider buying at a lower price, but paying more for the DLC than I did for the game is not an attractive prospect to me.

Very well said Erik. Too me you have always seemed like an open and fair journalist in regards to this whole ME3 nightmare, even if you believe otherwise yourself. And let’s be honest, even if you were massively biased, you more kinder than a good number of us were. Myself included in that group. I went off on a tangent like you wouldn’t believe.

As for the whole “wait and see” approach I kinda only half agree. Yes it’s a good idea for Bioware consumers to sit back and see if the next title (DA3) will be any good, but really for me, it’s too little far to late. I mean it’s been established they are outright liars and that kind of advertising behavior is unforgivable.

It should be noted that the Dragon Age team is and always has been a separate entity from the Mass effect team at Bioware. Albeit they might share technologies and location, they are games essentially being brought to market by different developers.

Certainly it’s fair to be skeptical of DAIII off the back of DAII (personally repeat maps aside I quite liked it myself), however it’s a little unfair to adjudge it based off the actions of the mass effect team.

While I do agree with how it is a little unfair of us to adjudge DAIII based on what the Mass Effect team has done, I disagree with thinking about them as different developers. Bioware is the developer, and the quality or lack there of in their games reflects on them as a whole.

It’s like going to a restaurant as a food critic and being told that for the last 3 times I ate there, team one made the food and that the cockroaches I found in the 3rd meal shouldn’t make me think that the meals team 2 are making will be bad. I would then give the entire restaurant a rating of poor. I would not say that, ‘while team 1 was bad, team 2 might make a great meal using the cockroach infested kitchen’.